Nobody likes to be told what to do. And now a UAlberta study proves that is true for even the strongest brand relationships.

“Seventy-two per cent of ads in America’s top 10 print magazines contain ads with language that tells consumers what to do,” said Sarah Moore, a marketing professor in the Alberta School of Business. “Our research is the first to look at how reactance motivation, your knee-jerk response to being bossed, is affected depending on your relationship status with brands.”

Moore found that while the reactions of less loyal customers were relatively neutral, surprisingly, ​the reactions of very loyal customers to pushy messages such asSave Money. Live Better,Think Different!,Buy Now!andVisit Us!were overwhelmingly negative.

“This is true even for seemingly innocuous assertive statements, likePlease Buy Now!or for messages that don’t have a negative consequence of non-compliance,” she said.

Even when offered a cash reward, Moore says an assertive message decreased how much that loyal customer would actually buy, and also made them mad.

“To not be compelled by cash is a strong test.”

Moore said only the more youthful and exciting brands, like Virgin or American Eagle, can get away with assertive style ads, but even their bossy ads didn’t register a positive effect.

Why the backlash?

According to Moore, reactance motivation reflects consumers’ need to be free to make their own choices. “Pushy ads, in demanding certain behaviours, restrict consumer freedoms and often cause backlash against the ad and brand.”

We know this to be true in human relationships, she explained.

“When your significant other tells you to do something, like attend a function that you don’t want to go to, you are likely to comply because you feel guilty. A similar process is activated in close brand relationships.

“The difference is that in brand-relationships, guilt backfires,” said Moore. “At the end of the day, consumers remember brands are just brands, which have commercial interests, and that they’re not true relationship partners. Backlash occurs.”

Practical tips for advertisers

The study offers a few remedies for marketers to modify language to avoid the impact of assertive ads.

“They can use directive language that is less individualistic and more general, and less pushy, likeNow is a good time to buy!instead ofBuy now!,” said Moore, adding this was shown to dissipate negative reactions in the research.

As well, Moore says when consumers think positively about their relationship with the brand, the negative impact of a pushy ad is decreased.

“Advertisers may want to play up this aspect, affirming the relationship, and then rephrase the call-to-action.”

TEC Edmonton and pharmaceutical giant Merck Canada are partnering up to create a business incubator connecting burgeoning Alberta-based health technology companies with health business experts.

“It is so important because young innovators or young companies frequently have what they believe are great ideas but don’t have connections to the market, they don’t know for sure if their ideas are going to be relevant,” said Chris Lumb, CEO of TEC Edmonton, a business accelerator that is the result of partnerhsip between the U of A and the City of Edmonton. “By being connected to a company like Merck, a multi-national with broad reach and outstanding expertise, they know they are working on something that matters and will have commercial significance.”

The TEC Edmonton Merck Accelerator, which will be ready for occupancy early next year at the U of A’s Enterprise Square campus in the heart of downtown Edmonton, is the first major project to come out of the Alberta Merck Innovation (AMI) in Health Fund, a $3.7 million fund developed by Merck Canada, the University Hospital Foundation and the Government of Alberta’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

“World-renowned life-sciences experts want to help our researchers and entrepreneurs create new products and businesses based on Alberta discoveries,” said Deron Bilous, Minister of Economic Development and Trade. “That means healthier lives for people around the world—and new jobs and a more diversified economy here at home.”

UAlberta president David Turpin said in order for the university to serve the public good, the knowledge and innovation developed must be translated into practical applications that “protect, preserve and improve our lives.

“When health innovations enter the market sooner, a few very important things happen—we improve patient outcomes, we reduce the burden on the health care system and we strengthen Alberta’s research ecosystem,” said Turpin. “The TEC Edmonton Merck Accelerator will leverage and build upon Alberta’s combined health research capacity and leadership, and strengthen Edmonton’s place as a thriving hub of health research.”

In addition to helping Alberta-based companies grow, the accelerator is also expected to entice health technology startups from outside the province to relocate to Alberta to access the expertise available at the accelerator.

The TEC Edmonton Merck Accelerator will also help build up the specialized laboratory incubations spaces that relevant and high-potential young life sciences-related startups need to succeed.

“This potential collaboration between industry, philanthropists and the public sector would elevate the province’s life-sciences industry to new heights and allow us to more effectively respond to promising new discoveries,” said Chirfi Guindo, president and managing director of Merck Canada.

]]>news,BusinessWed, 06 Sep 2017 00:57:39 +0200International trade a net benefit to the poorhttp://www.folio.ca/international-trade-a-net-benefit-to-the-poor/
http://www.folio.ca/international-trade-a-net-benefit-to-the-poor/Despite the possibility of a reduction in real wages in some sectors, developing countries are better off in a global economy.By MICHAEL BROWN

Poorer households in some developing countries experience net gains in well-being as a result of international trade, despite a potential erosion in income, a new study out of the University of Alberta reveals.

While it’s true international trade reduces real wages in certain sectors, research by UAlberta economist Beyza Ural Marchand found that cheaper imports also reduce domestic consumer prices, and the magnitude of this impact may be larger than any potential effect occurring through wages.

“The net effect of trade through the income and consumption channels is found to be positive and pro-poor in most studies of developing countries,” said Ural Marchand.

She added poorer households in India, for instance, have particularly benefited through the lower cost of consumption goods and, in fact, her research shows that both income and consumption contributed positively to household prosperity. She found wage incomes in Indian households improved by five per cent, while the cost of consumption was reduced by 16 per cent, leading to a 21 per cent gain in welfare.

“This is because food makes up much of the budget share for these households, and an increase in imports has helped lower food prices,” she said. “In addition, workers with less education gained relatively more through wages.”

Ural Marchand and an international team of researchers also found the same mechanism was in effect in China, where gains were larger in cities with a more competitive economic environment.

“In both countries the effect was pro-poor, implying that the gains were larger among poorer households,” she said.

Difference between rich and poor

Ural Marchand, whose research has thus far only focused on developing countries, explained the mechanisms through which trade affects poor countries and rich ones are inherently different.

“More and more research has shown that Chinese trade liberalization drove down the prices of manufacturing goods in the United States,” she said. “These price reductions would benefit the American consumer, while on the other hand, would lead to a reorganization of both domestic manufacturing activity and the labor force.”

Ural Marchand said this understanding of consumption and income are particularly important when evaluating trade policy, like NAFTA for instance.

“It’s important to consider that individuals are not only workers, but are also consumers that enjoy having access to a larger variety of goods at lower prices,” she said. “Even in cases where wage gains from trade are modest, or even perhaps negative, individuals may still achieve substantially larger consumption possibilities compared to a scenario without trade.”

]]>news,BusinessTue, 29 Aug 2017 23:22:35 +0200The fine line Canada must walk in Trump's Americahttp://www.folio.ca/the-fine-line-canada-must-walk-in-trumps-america/
http://www.folio.ca/the-fine-line-canada-must-walk-in-trumps-america/Deep economic asymmetry means Canada has more to lose than its southern neighbours during the NAFTA renegotiations.By DONNA McKINNON

As Canada entered into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) re-negotiations with the United States and Mexico this morning, it’s not business as usual.

The deep economic asymmetry that exists between the two countries is an ongoing and historical source of anxiety for Canada, with no immediate remedy in sight, said UAlberta political scientist Greg Anderson. And weaning Canada off the American economy, he added, is a debate as old as confederation.

“Any change, even the tiniest ripple, has a big impact on the pocketbooks of Canadians,” said Anderson. “It’s a vulnerability that Canadian prime ministers and administrations going back to the very beginning have worried about, but have been unable to change.”

Canada’s dependence on trade

Forty per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP), which measures national income and output, is dependent on access to international markets, and 80 per cent of that is headed to a single market: the United States. Conversely, only about a quarter of the American economy is tied to international trade. Of that, the diversity of trading partners—of which Canada is the largest—in combination with the depth of their consumer market (300 million), largely insulates the United States from disruptions in trading relationships.

“One of the real challenges for all countries, not just Canada, is trying to figure out the coherent thread running through everything that Trump is doing,” he said. “It’s not just a typical hyper-nationalist, populist approach. Not only is he threatening to scrap trade agreements, he’s actually gone further and said he’s going to completely pull out of all of these arrangements. He’s challenging NAFTA, he’s challenging NATO.

“There’s more destructive intent than any kind of constructive change. The first thing he did when in office was get rid of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Canada was a part of. That’s what’s worrisome; it’s just about destruction.”

A delicate balance

Anderson said keeping borders open to legitimate traffic, cargo and the uninterrupted movement of people is a delicate balance of diplomacy and advocacy; a matter of protecting Canada’s national interests without compromising long-standing relationships. And yet, when Canada does get noticed in Washington, like during the recent softwood lumber dispute, it’s usually for the wrong reasons.

“Canada benefits from not having a big profile in Washington because the relationship is so deeply integrated. A lot of things happen without much notice, day in, day out,” he said. “If something gets to the president’s desk, that’s not a good thing usually, for any country.”

According to Anderson, provincial governments have been doing a lot of work in the states immediately adjacent to them as a kind of bulwark against the vagaries of federal politics. He cites the Alberta government’s membership in the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region and the routine attendance of Canadian premiers at Western Governors’ Association meetings as examples of cross-border relationship building.

“They’re doing their own sub-federal diplomacy to make people aware of each other,” he said. “It’s all good, but it’s also a slow boil. You don’t just start doing that and have an impact three days later. It’s a very slow process and nets results over a long period of time.”

As disorganization and impulsivity continue to permeate the White House, the pressure on other nations’ leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to fill the global leadership vacuum has become increasingly more urgent.

“Trudeau and Trump couldn’t be bigger contrasts in terms of what they represent,” said Anderson. “I would like to see Trudeau make a little more effort to be a global voice on trade liberalization, migration, climate change. In my view, he doesn’t quite have the bravado of his dad, nor the oratory skills, but I think he’s doing as well as anyone. He’s trying to find his way in a very chaotic period.”

Anderson will be speaking at the Faculty of Arts Alumni Weekend event: The Elephant in the Room: Canada-US Relations in the era of Trump, on Friday, Sept. 22 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Wild Rose Room in Lister Centre. A question and answer period and reception will follow.

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations that started today will likely be a battle of political wills that come back to the thorny issue of dispute resolution, says a UAlberta trade policy expert.

“Canada is in a position to strive for some positive concessions on a few fronts, but if push comes to shove, we probably need to accept changes to Chapter 19 of NAFTA,” said Rolf Mirus, CN-Professor of Trade Policy (Emeritus).

“Modifying or losing Chapter 19 will expose us to major risks, but those risks may be less painful than losing NAFTA altogether, should Trump threaten to terminate the agreement,” he explained.

Chapter 19 is hailed as one of the most important achievements in NAFTA for Canada, as it provides a dispute settlement process for challenging antidumping (duties put on goods exported at prices below cost) and countervailing duty matters.

“It’s also on the top of Trump’s list of items to remove, and given he needs a victory on one of his election promises, this may well be a matter of political will,” said Mirus.

Chapter 19 is important to Canada because it protects businesses from a flawed and highly political U.S. apparatus that greatly favoured American companies in determinations of dumping and the importing of products with government subsidies, he said.

“Before Chapter 19, American companies that felt threatened could simply run to their government representatives and get a ruling they needed. Chapter 19 allowed us to challenge rulings, and made the U.S. more careful in their dealings. We also won a number of important disputes through it.”

Nevertheless, preserving Chapter 19 as it currently stands will not be as important as losing NAFTA should it come to that, said Mirus.

“We would be in a vulnerable trade position without NAFTA, especially on the global stage. It would also have a huge impact on countless businesses who rely on an integrated North American supply chain network.”

Mirus explained that while Trump insists Canada has a trade surplus, it’s limited to goods.

“In fact, our $11.3 billion deficit in services-trade—banking, tourism, entertainment, for example—offsets a considerable portion of the $32.5 billion surplus on goods-trade for 2016,” he said. “We’ve been sideswiped by these NAFTA renegotiations, considering we have only a minor surplus with the US if our negative trade balance in services is considered.”

Other areas Canada could stand to gain, or lose as the case may be, according to Mirus, include the following:

The investor-state dispute settlement mechanism contained in NAFTA’s chapter 11 that currently grants investors the right to sue foreign governments without first pursuing legal action in the country’s court systems, in order to protect foreign investors from discrimination. “It commonly used against Canada,” said Mirus, adding that it’s a chance for the prime minister to push for more transparency to how decisions are arrived at, and to establish an appeal process.

The value of goods American stores can send to Canada without having to pay taxes or duties currently sits at $20, but the U.S. wants that limit hiked to about US$800. “Canadian retailers object for obvious reasons, while consumers would be pleased. A compromise could be struck for $100 or so increase,” said Mirus.

One mutually agreeable deal could be struck around access to government procurement contracts. “Trump could hail access to Canadian government procurement contracts as a plus,” said Mirus. “The loss would not be terribly detrimental to us as we already made that concession to the European Union in the CETA-trade deal, whereas the payoff could be quite big given Trump’s big infrastructure program.”

A pair of entrepreneurial graduate students at the University of Alberta won the $30,000 TEC VenturePrize Telus ICT Award with a technology that will help restauranteurs maintain food safety.

Zack Storms and Preetam Anbukarasu devised a remote temperature monitoring system they dubbed Preza T-Monitor, which is composed of smart sensors that monitor and record temperatures in refrigeration units wirelessly, improving reliability and safety.

Some large restaurants can have as many as 20 walk-in refrigeration units. Regulations require that someone go into the unit, check the temperature and record it on a sheet of paper, three times a day.

The system is time-consuming and hardly foolproof.

The technology developed by Storms and Anbukarasu stores temperature readings that are recorded 24 hours a day by sensors. If the temperature falls below a set point, alerts are sent.

“From a restaurant manager’s position, this is helpful because you know the work is being done,” said Storms. “It gives you a record and you know the monitoring is being done.”

So do restaurant inspectors, who review the records.

“It’s reliable and it’s a simple system—you can install it yourself,” said Storms.

It’s no surprise the two graduate students started their own company, Preza Technologies, or that they’re focusing on food safety. Both came to UAlberta seeking to launch a technology company and both worked in a research lab run by materials engineering professors Anastasia Elias and Dominic Sauvageau, in which “smart packaging” that protects consumers from contaminated food was being developed.

“We were initially drawn to the smart packaging project because Drs. Elias and Sauvageau specifically wanted to commercialize their research and were happy to give their students the freedom to pursue technology development and drive the research in commercially relevant directions,” said Storms.

Storms and Anbukarasu realized the smart packaging project has a long road to commercialization so they actively looked for a technology they could develop with a much shorter timeline to commercialization.

As part of the MBA program in which he’s in right now, he conducted a detailed market survey of the restaurant industry, which revealed an opportunity to develop the Preza T-Monitor technology and commercialize it.

“We wanted to get our company started, build revenue, gain experience and be ready for bigger research commercialization projects as they arise. We’re hopeful the smart packaging project will be part of our future,” explained Storms.

Storms earned his PhD in chemical engineering at McGill and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UAlberta’s Faculty of Engineering, with funding from Alberta Innovates—Technology Futures aimed at entrepreneurial researchers, before embarking on his MBA.

Meanwhile Anbukarasu is completing his PhD in materials engineering this year.

The two are investing the $30,000 prize from the competition into their company.

Over the summer, they will test a basic version of the product and hope to land their first sales by August. They’re also working with senior UAlberta engineering and computing science undergraduate students to find ways to improve their hardware and software.

In the longer term, Storms and Anbukarasu are hoping to leverage a new graduate student internship program to conduct research in partnership with UAlberta professors to develop more advanced sensing platforms that use energy harvesting strategies to extend the battery life of the sensors.

Herb Belcourt, one of Edmonton’s most prominent Métis education leaders, entrepreneurs and philanthropists, died yesterday morning after a battle with cancer. He was 85.

“Herb was a very positive man and a very gentle man. At the same time, he was somebody who was driven, who wanted to make a difference in the lives of people. His passing is a huge loss,” said Nathalie Kermoal, associate dean (academic) in the Faculty of Native Studies and director of the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research.

“Herb’s dedication to Métis students and his passion for enabling their success through post-secondary education was remarkable—and the University of Alberta has been honoured to be his partner in this,” said David H. Turpin, president of the University of Alberta. “Only last week, we had a conversation about how much we have to celebrate and how important this work continues to be. Along with so many others in our community, I am deeply saddened by his loss and extend my condolences to his family and friends.”

Belcourt’s philanthropic work was integrally tied to his entrepreneurial spirit—and he used his success in business to fund the future of Métis.

In 1971, he developed a much needed non-profit corporation, Canative Housing Corporation, to provide affordable housing for Indigenous people in Edmonton and Calgary.

In 2001, Belcourt and his partners Orval Belcourt and Georges Brosseau sold the company and used the proceeds to co-found the multi-million dollar Belcourt Brosseau Métis Awards (BBMA) Fund to help Métis Albertans realize self-sufficiency through post-secondary education and skills development.

The endowment—the largest non-government source of student funding for Métis in Canada—has provided more than $5.8 million to more than 900 Métis Albertans, many of whom studied at UAlberta. Belcourt also donated one of the Canative homes to UAlberta to house a Métis residence.

“Dr. Belcourt was passionate about work ethic. He knew that our ancestors were hard working people and that somehow we were slipping from the economy,” said Elder Marilyn Buffalo, UAlberta’s Indigenous cultural advisor in the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic), who knew Belcourt since she was a teenager.

“He felt that Métis were not financed the same as other people and sought to change that with the BBMA fund.”

A lot of students receive BBMAs, and it has made a tremendous contribution to their lives, added Kermoal.

“Belcourt was a visionary and therefore a strong leader. One of the things you noticed about him was his humility. He would always try to surround himself with good people realizing you cannot do anything alone,” she said.

Buffalo added that she and many others grew up benefiting from Belcourt’s leadership. “He was an ambassador.”

Belcourt grew up in the bush near Lac St. Anne, and attributed his entrepreneurial strength to a promise he made to himself, upon his father’s advice, to always work for himself. In 1965, he launched Alberta’s third largest power line company, Belcourt Construction.

Among his many accolades are the Order of Canada and the Aboriginal Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2001, the U of A awarded Belcourt an honourary doctorate of laws.

“I want to express my condolences to the family. Herb Belcourt leaves a strong, powerful legacy and we can now be rest assured he’s holding court and meeting with our ancestors,” said Buffalo.

One of the world’s leading AI research companies, DeepMind, will open its first international research base outside the United Kingdom later this month. The lab will be based in Edmonton and have close ties to the University of Alberta.

The new lab, to be called DeepMind Alberta, demonstrates DeepMind’s commitment to accelerating Alberta’s and Canada’s AI research community. It also signals the strength of ties between UAlberta and one of the world’s leading AI companies. Having been acquired by Google in 2014, DeepMind is now part of Alphabet. DeepMind is on a scientific mission to push the boundaries of AI, developing programs that can learn to solve complex problems without being taught how.

The DeepMind Alberta team will be led by UAlberta computing science professors Richard Sutton, Michael Bowling, and Patrick Pilarski, who is also a medical researcher. All three, who will remain with the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute at UAlberta, will also continue teaching and supervising graduate students at the university to further foster the Canadian AI talent pipeline and grow the country’s technology ecosystem. The team will be completed by seven more researchers, many of whom were also authors on the the influential DeepStack paper published earlier this year in Science.

UAlberta’s connections to DeepMind run deep with roughly a dozen UAlberta alumni already working at the company, some of whom played important roles in DeepMind’s signature advances with reinforcement learning in AlphaGo and Atari. In addition, Sutton, one of the world’s most renowned computing scientists, was DeepMind’s first advisor when the company was first established.

“I first met with Rich seven years ago when DeepMind was just a handful of people with a big idea. He saw our potential and encouraged us from day one. So when we chose to set up our first international AI research office, the obvious choice was his base in Edmonton, in close collaboration with the University of Alberta, which has become a leader in reinforcement learning research thanks to his pioneering work,” said Demis Hassabis, CEO and co-founder of DeepMind. ”I am very excited to be working with Rich, Mike, Patrick and their team, together with UAlberta, and I look forward to us making many more scientific breakthroughs together in the years ahead.”

Sutton is excited about the opportunity to combine the strength of DeepMind’s work in reinforcement learning with UAlberta’s academic excellence, all without having to leave Edmonton.

“DeepMind has taken this reinforcement learning approach right from the very beginning, and the University of Alberta is the world’s academic leader in reinforcement learning, so it’s very natural that we should work together,” said Sutton. “And as a bonus, we get to do it without moving.”

Working with Hassabis and the DeepMind team both in London and Edmonton, Sutton, Bowling, and Pilarski will combine their academic strength in reinforcement learning to focus on basic AI research. Reinforcement learning functions similarly to the way humans learn, trying to replicate good outcomes and avoid bad outcomes based on learned experiences.

The DeepMind Alberta announcement is the latest in a slate of AI-related successes for UAlberta. The recent major funding infusion via the federal government’s Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy strengthens the Alberta Innovates' 15-year investment of more than $40 million.

Tim Buckland was on the brink of adulthood when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He received the news one week before his 18th birthday, and as a highly fit hockey player and passionate golfer, he found it hard to believe.

The tumor was removed immediately and successfully, and Buckland was determined to put the whole ordeal behind him and move on. And for a time he did. A talented golfer with a four handicap—accustomed to playing 70 or 80 rounds per year from the time he was eight—he focused all of his energy and attention on the upcoming season, and soon after started a bachelor’s degree in science at the University of Alberta.

But the cancer struck again when he was 21—not once, but twice, after surgery failed to remove the entire mass. He went through four rounds of chemotherapy, realizing the disease was more than a blip in his life now.

“This time I knew it was a big deal,” he told Leap, a publication of the Alberta Cancer Foundation. “I couldn’t avoid talking about it. I was having some psychological effects, anxiety and some cognitive issues that were interfering with my school.”

He eventually found help with Young Adults Cancer Canada, a support group with whom he could share feelings. He also shifted his academic focus, following up his first degree with a master’s in biochemistry, specializing in breast cancer research.

It gradually dawned on him that his life’s path lay in helping others face what he had to endure.

"I love science, and think it's the coolest thing on Earth, but I wasn't able to get the same passion behind it,” said Buckland. “I didn't want to work in academia because I decided it was too far removed from patients and those I really wanted to help.”

He volunteered with the Cross Cancer Institute as a new patient information facilitator for three years and sat on the board of the Cross Cancer Institute Volunteer Association for two years. Both jobs gave him a taste for the kind of work he’d like to take up in his career.

“I'm ambitious, so I decided to come back and do an MBA," specializing in public policy management, he said. “Cancer opens your eyes to what's important, and it's not financial gain. Even in the MBA program, it's not really my driver. I think my fight with cancer changed me a lot, and also knowing what I'm good at and want to help people with."

Golf still plays a crucial role in Buckland’s life. It’s been perhaps his most consistent form of therapy over the years. In 2014 he entered a contest to compete in Mizuno’s JPX Invitational tournament requiring him to answer the question: what can you do with golf to make your life better? He told his cancer story and was the only Canadian accepted to the tournament in Georgia. He ended up winning it.

Now graduating, Buckland isn’t sure where this third degree will take him, only that it will likely be linked to some form of cancer activism: “It may not be a conscious thing, but it drives me all the time.” And if golf can play a role in whatever he ends up doing, so much the better.

"I want to take my time and select the right organization, the right place. In the past I've always jumped to whatever was closest, a kind of knee jerk reaction to a position. Now I want to take my time and explore the options, and get in as much golf as I possibly can."

He now sits on the provincial advisory council for cancer as a young adult specialist, advising the council on how the disease affects young people and what resources will meet their particular needs.

“What impresses me most about Tim is how he leads by example,” said Andrew Luchak, one of his business instructors. “He follows through on commitments, always sees the positive in situations or challenges, and is kind and genuinely interested in helping others.

“He also has a sharp intellect, balanced nicely by both a quiet confidence in all he knows and truthful humility in what is yet to be learned. It’s easy to like Tim, not least because of how he applies his talents for the betterment of others.”

Added Buckland: “I've always felt supported in every degree, but in the MBA there are so many people trying to help you. I'll definitely miss it."

Since he was a boy, Jason Wang knew he’d be following in his father’s footsteps. His young eyes widened at the dizzying array of control panels and humming equipment in the lab where his father, an oilsands researcher, worked. By high school, Wang had set his sights on designing renewable technologies like wind turbines and solar panels.

But after his first year of mechanical engineering at the University of Alberta, Wang discovered that building new energy sources alone would not be enough to help communities that need them. That summer, he joined a research project in Pangnirtung, Nunavut, a remote Baffin Island community that relies entirely on generators powered by diesel, a fuel brought in by tankers that can be delayed by the unpredictable melts and freezings spurred by climate change. In 2015, the community declared a state of emergency after fire destroyed several of its generators.

"I saw how the community struggled with this constant uncertainty,” said Wang, 22. “The engineer in me said, 'What can we do to fix this? How can we help them fix it themselves?’”

Wang knew he’d need to complement his engineering studies with an understanding of the social issues facing communities like Pangnirtung. And if he had any hope of making renewable energy sources accessible and affordable to remote areas, he’d need the skills of a leader.

Earlier today, the college’s permanent home, Peter Lougheed Hall, was officially opened. The five-storey building, overlooking the North Saskatchewan River on UAlberta’s North Campus, includes spaces for meetings, presentations by guest speakers, as well as living space for students and visiting experts.

“With the opening of Peter Lougheed Hall, we’ve taken a vital step in becoming Canada’s pre-eminent leadership program for undergraduates,” said college vice-principal Martin Ferguson-Pell. “Like any academic program, our students need a physical space—a focal point so that they can collaborate in teams.”

Leadership in action

Teamwork was one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of the program for Wang. A consistent lesson was that effectively participating in a team does not mean being bossy.

“It means being flexible to the needs of a team, and setting it up to be self-sufficient,” said Wang.

He put that theory of self-sufficiency to work not only at the college but in his role on the leadership team for EcoCar, a student-run engineering club at UAlberta that designs and builds hydrogen-powered vehicles. Last spring, as Wang and his colleagues scrambled to ready their car for its annual public unveiling, a first-year club member stepped forward with plans to ramp up the event with media and advertising.

“We let her run with it. We believed in her and she pulled off an incredible event—around 2,000 students showed up. She then used that momentum to fundraise more than $10,000 for EcoCar,” Wang said.

"I realized that if you set up a team right, you, as a leader, should feel like you're not really doing anything—but in a good way.”

“At the end of the day, energy and climate change need people-driven solutions. We have to work together as communities,” he said. “I hope my biggest contribution will be to inspire people and make them excited about what’s to come.”

Ferguson-Pell said when students like Wang learn and apply these foundational principles of leadership, it confirms that the college is honouring the vision of its namesake, former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, ’51 BA, ’52 LLB, ’86 LLD (Honorary).

“Lougheed believed that leaders are most effective when they empower teams of people,” said Ferguson-Pell. “We believe our students will combine their passions with their new skills to change the world for the better.”

The University of Alberta has firmly entrenched itself as being home to one of the world’s top executive education programs, according to the Financial Times business education ranking of professional development programs for business leaders.

In the open-enrolment category, the Alberta School of Business Executive Education was named sixth best in Canada and 60th worldwide, and placed among the top providers of customized executive education programs, bumping up to fifth in Canada and 73rd worldwide.

“Our continued placement is a testament to our staff and faculty who strive to deliver the highest level of quality and impact to our clients,” says Heather Christensen, associate dean of Executive Education at the Alberta School of Business.

This Alberta School of Business business leader development program specializes in certificate programs and short courses designed to support individual and organizational growth in all areas of executive development, including leadership, governance, finance and management. Executive Education offers more than 75 programs and forums per year and operates out of both Edmonton and Calgary.

These annual rankings are tabulated using results from a client survey and data from individual schools.

The top programs in both the open-enrolment and customized categories were IMD out of Switzerland and Singapore and the Iese Business School based in Spain. York University's Schulich School of Business (39) had Canada’s top customized program while the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management (16) was deemed the nation’s top open-enrolment program.

These results are the latest in a spate of top ranking results, the most recent of which were released by the Center for World University Rankings, which listed the U of A among the world’s best in five subject areas, including sixth in transplantation; fifth in each of forestry, geology and petroleum engineering; and third in paleontology. Those results follow on the heels of the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2017, which placed the U of A in the top 100 in an unprecedented 25 subjects, including 10th in the world for sports-related subjects, 16th for nursing and 18th in mining engineering.

Earlier in the year the U of A jumped an astonishing 79 places in Times Higher Education’s World’s Most International Universities ranking. The U of A ranked 31st most international university, ahead of the University of Toronto (32), Harvard (33), Stanford (36) and Princeton (37). Other showings include a top five placement in the Maclean’s ranking of top Canadian universities and a 94th-place showing in the 2016-17 QS World University Rankings. The QS ranking, which puts a heavy emphasis on reputation, also placed the U of A in the top five nationally.

]]>Business,NewsWed, 17 May 2017 04:30:00 +0200Trump's trade deal threats won't have much impact on Albertahttp://www.folio.ca/trumps-trade-deal-threats-wont-have-much-impact-on-alberta/
http://www.folio.ca/trumps-trade-deal-threats-wont-have-much-impact-on-alberta/Softwood lumber dispute is a power play paving the way to NAFTA renegotiation, says UAlberta economist.By LESLIE YOUNG

The effect of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20 per cent tariff on Canadian softwood lumber should be relatively small and temporary in Alberta, according to an economist at the University of Alberta

“The impact of the softwood lumber tariff on Alberta should be relatively small because Alberta only produces about 14 per cent of the softwood lumber in Canada. However, British Columbia might be hit harder because it accounted for about half of Canadian softwood lumber production in 2016,” said Runjuan Liu, an economics professor at the U of A’s Alberta School of Business.

In the short run, sawmills will experience downturns that involve downsizing or exits due to the decreased U.S. demand, she added. “But in the long run, we do hope that the dispute can be fairly resolved so the negative consequences can be limited to a minimum.”

Repeated Canada-U.S. disputes over softwood lumber have involved U.S. tariffs ranging from 15 to 27 per cent on production dating back to 1982.

“The 20 per cent tariff proposed by the U.S. this time is kind of within the historical range.”

Trump began vocalizing his frustrations with trade by contending that Canada makes business harder for Wisconsin dairy farmers (referring to Canada reducing dairy prices). He followed up on the lumber tariff announcement with threatening tweets and verbal hyperbole.

Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult. We will not stand for this. Watch!

Trump and his administration raised the stakes on Wednesday, drafting an executive order to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) altogether. Late Wednesday night, a White House statement and more tweets from Trump announced that the U.S. will not pull out of NAFTA, but will initiate negotiations with Canada and Mexico quickly.

I received calls from the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada asking to renegotiate NAFTA rather than terminate. I agreed..

Liu said this maneuvering is not at all unexpected, given Trump’s protectionist agenda. “Canada is a big player in the U.S. lumber market, accounting for one-third of U.S. softwood lumber consumption.”

Given Canada is not guilty of Trump’s accusations of unfair lumber subsidies and dumping (cutting prices to offload stock), according to a World Trade Organization ruling during the previous lumber dispute, Liu added that the tariff may have been an easy move to pave the way for the NAFTA renegotiations.

“We hope Mr. Trump will not pick on oil and gas next. Agriculture and forestry accounts for 1.6 per cent of Alberta’s GDP. Oil, gas and mining accounts for over 18 per cent.”

The University of Alberta is teaming up with research partners in China to develop low-carbon, sustainable energy solutions while tackling global environmental challenges.

Officials from the U of A, Tsinghua University and the Government of Alberta—led by Premier Rachel Notley—were in Beijing on April 20 to sign an agreement to create the Joint Research Centre for Future Energy and Environment. Researchers will collaborate on a range of problems related to energy, environment and climate change, renewable energy, advanced power systems, energy transport and more.

“This is a rare opportunity for a Canadian university to partner with Tsinghua University in such a significant way,” said Larry Kostiuk, U of A associate vice-president of research. “We come from different places and backgrounds, but we’re going to come together and leverage our different perspectives to solve common problems.”

Evolving collaboration between leading universities

Kostiuk said the joint research centre is the latest evolution in more than two decades of collaborations between the U of A and Tsinghua University—arguably China’s best research institution and among the top in the world.

The centre will be based at Tsinghua in a state-of-the-art research facility. Once construction is completed in the next three years, the centre will be able to apply for grant funding through the Chinese Ministry of Education, which is establishing strategic international research centres across the country.

“There are a number of joint research centres in China. This is the only one with a Canadian university,” said Kostiuk, who will serve as the new centre’s deputy director while retaining his position as director of U of A’s Future Energy Systems initiative, which brings together researchers across disciplines to improve and develop new low-carbon energy technologies, integrate them into today’s infrastructure and understand the social and economic impact of their adoption.

Kostiuk said the creation of Future Energy Systems as well as the U of A’s long-standing ties to Tsinghua—strengthened by a recent delegation led by President David Turpin—were key factors in the new partnership.

Turpin said the joint research centre will leverage the strengths of world-leading talent at both institutions to address globally important issues such as clean energy, environment and climate change. Since 2012, the two institutions have collaborated on more than 30 research projects in these areas.

“Strengthening these collaborations will open even more avenues of discovery and lead to new ideas, technologies and innovations that will benefit both countries and the world,” Turpin said.

“We are pleased to work with the University of Alberta, which has a global reputation in energy systems research,” said Qikun Xue, vice-president of research with Tsinghua University. “We look forward to bringing our strengths together to tackle many critical issues facing our planet.”

Partnerships boost economic diversification, training

The joint research centre was one of several key agreements the U of A signed with Chinese partners as part of a wider Government of Alberta trade mission, led by Premier Notley, to strengthen ties with the province’s second-largest trading partner.

The Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine signed a memorandum of understanding with Guanghua International Education Association to develop training for health professionals that will help China enhance and expand rehabilitation capacity.

TEC Edmonton signed an agreement with Tsinghua University’s research innovation incubator, TusPark/TusStar, on a new joint incubator. TusPark/TusStar operates the largest university science park in the world, and the new partnership would expand its global reach, creating economic opportunities for Edmonton and Alberta.

“I am extremely proud to support the University of Alberta and TEC Edmonton in forming relationships with such innovative partners in China,” said Notley. “We look forward to seeing this partnership thrive, and to watching Alberta’s expertise across a variety of areas, not only create opportunities for Albertans, but make a difference around the world.”

During an intensive 10-day trip to Ethiopia this past January, nine MBA students faced unexpectedly hard emotional and business truths as they conducted in-the-field research to create a business plan to develop a multimillion-dollar cancer centre.

They saw young children, mothers and elderly people in crowded hospitals—many with advanced stage cancer tumours—waiting to see one of four oncologists serving the entire country of Ethiopia.

“It was really hard to see all the late-stage cancer cases,” said Diane Turner, one of the nine hand-selected students who participated in this year’s new School of Business elective: Frontiers of Business Initiative.

Discovering how different reality is from the classroom is the point of the unique business elective, said Emily Block, who brought the immersive project-based course to the U of A in 2016.

The cancer centre the students were developing a business plan for will serve eight countries in the East African region, where it’s projected there will be 1.28 million new cancer cases and 735,000 cancer deaths annually by 2030.

“We thought we’d included most everything going over there in our preliminary business plan,” said Turner. “But there were things we didn’t even think of. Like there not being enough of the foreign currency available to buy the machines needed, or a lack of basic sanitation.”

The students recently completed their 170-page plan and relayed their experiences to the Business Advisory Council. The document covered the gamut from risk analysis to revenue strategies and contained recommendations for cancer care prevention, research, diagnosis, treatment, palliative care and drug manufacturing. It also accounts for operational capital development, clinical trials, HR strategies, risk analysis, marketing strategies, stakeholder analysis, regulatory compliance, board development and more.

“It was an amazing lesson in adjusting plans to the real environment and it’s the difference between any other thing you’ll do in business school,” said Turner. “It’s taking the learning and actually doing, and that’s a missing step in so many MBA programs.”

Block said, “The goal of this elective and future ones is to challenge MBAs to combine and develop effective solutions in frontier markets, which may be international or closer to home. Only one other business school in North America offers this kind of hands-on experience in a business leadership course.”

She is currently searching for next year’s project and welcomes leads from the community.

]]>Business,NewsWed, 12 Apr 2017 07:00:00 +0200LEGALIZING IT || Marijuana market likely to be highly competitivehttp://www.folio.ca/legalizing-it--marijuana-market-likely-to-be-highly-competitive/
http://www.folio.ca/legalizing-it--marijuana-market-likely-to-be-highly-competitive/UAlberta expert discusses what it will take for companies to survive what is expected to be a crowded marketplace.By LESLEY YOUNG

It’s not every day that a new, large industry is created overnight, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen when Canada legalizes the sale and consumption of marijuana by July 1, 2018.

“It’s a fascinating retail case,” said Kyle Murray, director of the University of Alberta’s School of Retailing, who predicts a flood of players keen to hawk product in an industry predicted to be worth $22.6 billion.

LEGALIZING IT

In this four-part series, UAlberta News examines some of the issues surrounding the legalization of marijuana in Canada.

“It will be like when they privatized the liquor business. You’ll have a number of players that will enter the market right away and they’ll try out a bunch of things because we don’t really know how to run this market in a legitimate way yet.”

The federal government is expected to introduce its long-awaited legislation this Thursday.

Like the majority of new businesses, most will fail, said Murray, adding that those who will most likely survive the initial Darwinian phase will be the ones with the deepest pockets.

“You really have to think about your financial strength early on. You’re going to make mistakes and if you’re doing it on a shoestring (budget), the probability of making it is pretty low.”

A good investment?

It may be tempting to invest in marijuana-related companies, given the sudden spikes in share prices some of them experienced. But is it a good opportunity?

“As a general rule, value firms (those with low price to book ratios) tend to do better than growth firms that are priced high, and marijuana firms don’t have the characteristics of value firms,” said UAlberta finance expert Vikas Mehrotra.

“Liquor stores have a good argument they already do this type of business. But, of course, Shoppers and Rexall will want in, and why not let them? In addition to the retail structure, they have the knowledge to sell it in a more controlled manner.”

Murray anticipates the government will play a central role in regulating the price of marijuana and set reasonable rates to avoid the emergence of a grey market. Without price to compete on, other basics of retail—finding a good location, having a well-trained staff, good product supply and selection, finding ways to engage customers and branding—will be important.

“Some people are concerned the product won’t be as good, but the reality is at some point in the near future, if not initially, it will be better because of the transparent and open competition. If you can go from store to store and check out quality, it’s very different from the system we have now. I think product quality will jump,” said Murray.

Who could blame Edmontonians for wanting to poke holes in the housing bubbles of our richer cousins in Vancouver and Toronto, especially after more than a year of slow sales and mildly dipping prices on the home front?

Thinking about buying or selling?

Don’t wait for an increase in house prices anytime in 2017. “If you’re in sell mode, you have to be very patient if you’re seeking a higher price—otherwise bite the bullet,” said Dale-Johnson. And new home buyers who qualify for mortgages should be patient, and look at a 2017 purchase as a medium- to long-term investment rather than with a flip mentality.

But there are good reasons to suggest prices for our abodes will be steady as the province rides out a rocky economy through the rest of the year, according to University of Alberta real estate expert David Dale-Johnson.

“Edmonton has a number of characteristics going for it that make us much more resilient to downturns,” said Dale-Johnson, the Stan Melton Executive Professor in Real Estate at the Alberta School of Business.

They are (in no particular order):

A diverse labour force

People need work in order to spend on homes. Fortunately, a large proportion of our employers are in health care, government and higher education, all areas that are outside the vortex of the energy sector, explained Dale-Johnson. Furthermore, administrative and executive oil and gas employees tend to bear the brunt of a downturn (as witnessed in Calgary with its high office vacancy rates and ensuing decline in residential real estate values), whereas people working in the trades—many of whom reside in Edmonton—are still required for operations, he added.

Downtown’s makeover

“The ice district and revitalization of Edmonton’s downtown is a good thing for the city in terms of appeal, and nearby homeowners will benefit from it for a long time.” Another positive fact: we’ve built more than 1.8 million sq. ft. of office space in Edmonton recently—the most that has been built in Edmonton at one time—and our biggest buildings are currently well occupied.

“It comes with a price in that we now have high vacancies in older, sometimes outdated buildings. The good news is that it will force owners to reposition or repurpose the older office stock—that will take time but will ultimately be good for the city,” Dale-Johnson noted.

Geography

Edmonton is dubbed "The Gateway to the North" for good reason: it serves as home base for many people working up north and in outlier towns. It also services those in nearby regions, which is a boon for commercial real estate. To wit: Simons (La Maison Simons) opened its first Western Canadian location in Edmonton, and Southgate Centre has the fifth highest sales per square foot of any mall in Canada.

Dale-Johnson added that footloose firms from Vancouver and Toronto will look at Edmonton and Calgary as great alternatives where their employees can enjoy lower housing costs, a friendly and inviting community, great culture and good infrastructure.

Immigrant appeal

In the long term, Alberta needs another source of growth besides oil, and Dale-Johnson believes immigration could be one solution. “Both Edmonton and Calgary are attractive places to live. They have culture and good infrastructure, and are affordable, relatively speaking.”

]]>Business,NewsTue, 04 Apr 2017 03:30:00 +02005 ways to reduce stress at workhttp://www.folio.ca/5-ways-to-reduce-stress-at-work/
http://www.folio.ca/5-ways-to-reduce-stress-at-work/Making the office a place you want go to every day is a team effort, says UAlberta expert.By BEV BETKOWSKI

Like it or not, we spend most of our waking hours in the office, so creating a positive workplace matters—and it’s up to everyone on the floor to make it happen, says a University of Alberta expert.

“Canadians spend 60 per cent of their time at work, so why not make that a healthy place to be?” said Thomas Barker, a communications professor in the Faculty of Extension who researches workplace wellness. “If you’re spending 60 per cent of your time in a place where you are being bullied, or not being rewarded, or where you don’t feel you are achieving anything, then you are not going to have a happy life.”

But making the office a place you want to be day in and day out is a team effort, suggested Barker, who heads the Healthy Workplaces for Helping Professions project exploring wellness for workers in the social services sector.

Recommendations from the project indicate that it’s not only up to managers, human resource officers or the office’s wellness committee to create a good working environment.

“Being a leader means that employees have to speak up and express their awareness of the dangers that different workplace hazards pose,” he said. “They have to adopt ways of coping not just for themselves, but also talk to others and to their employer.

“Not hearing from employees means a workplace lacks awareness of unproductive and psychologically dangerous hazards—and more importantly, of ways to mitigate that hazard.”

There are five ways everyone can build a more harmonious workplace, said Barker:

1. Understand your stressors

Common stressors include lack of resources, high workloads or unco-operative colleagues.

“It’s important to understand that stress is a response to a hazard. If workers are well equipped to do their job and have a good relationship with co-workers, they can overcome stressful challenges,” said Barker, who added that experiencing stress in your job is not inevitable.

2. Look after yourself

“Follow the basics of proactive self-care by tending to your physical, spiritual, emotional and social needs to create life balance,” Barker advised.

That includes eating well, getting enough rest, exercising and spending time with friends and family. Avoid “escapist behaviour” like self-medicating with alcohol or drugs.

“Our research shows that if people have good self-care at work, they feel less stressed,” Barker said.

3. Build good relationships

“Be mindful of other people. If you have a bad relationship with someone, try to understand what the other person’s interests are and think about what greater good can be accomplished if you work with that person,” Barker said.

This means being empathetic and respectful towards others, building trust and being committed to working on a team.

4. Tap into workplace resources

Take advantage of employee assistance plans, which usually offer go-to services like counselling, classes and, in extreme cases, disability leave that can help workers address their wellness issues.

There tends to be a stigma about taking part in workplace programs, Barker said. “People see that stigma and it makes them shy away from programs that could really be healthy, so it’s important to be proactive in taking advantage of those kinds of resources.”

5. Communicate some caring

Offer to lend an ear to co-workers who seem down.

“If you see a colleague who is having a bad day, stop and say, ‘You know what, I’ve been there.’ Don’t try to problem-solve for them, but do let them know they’re not alone, that they have resources, they have a team.

“That kind of encouragement needs to happen—and the more communication there is around health issues and wellness in the workplace, the better things are going to be.”

]]>Society & Culture,Business,NewsThu, 23 Mar 2017 23:30:00 +0100Boredom makes us more vulnerable to banking's high-pressure sales tacticshttp://www.folio.ca/boredom-makes-us-more-vulnerable-to-bankings-high-pressure-sales-tactics/
http://www.folio.ca/boredom-makes-us-more-vulnerable-to-bankings-high-pressure-sales-tactics/The best way to fend off banks’ aggressive offerings is to get excited about our finances. But can we?By LESLEY YOUNG

Following allegations of unscrupulous banking sales tactics, marketing expert Kyle Murray is encouraging Canadians to be more savvy about their finances.

A federal review of banking’s business practices was announced yesterday after employees of Canada’s five biggest banks revealed their use of high-pressure sales tactics and even trickery that involved duping customers into products and services they don’t want.

But it wasn’t until employees spoke out that action was taken.

“[Our indifference] comes down to a quirky reality of consumer psychology. People will spend a year planning and looking forward to a vacation, and spend the absolute minimum amount of time planning their finances, on average,” explained Murray, director of the School of Retailing. “It’s really hard to get people to read the fine print on their mortgage or credit cards. The vast majority of people just are not interested.”

Given our financial solvency is at stake, why are we so blasé about our money?

“The simple answer is that it’s boring. It’s complex, too. Maybe some are intimidated by it. And then there is the aspect of personal greed.”

Unfortunately, he added, this consumer mindset is ripe for picking by banks, which—as they compete for new customers against each other and fintech (financial technology) startups—are ratcheting up pressure on employees to do whatever it takes to make sales.

How to protect yourself

“The advice is the same as it has been for a long time. Take an interest. Shop for alternatives when you’re looking at a mortgage or chequing account. Read the fine print. Ask a lot of questions. Educate yourself on how banking products are being packaged and where the money comes from,” said Murray.

“But all of these things are boring,” he said, adding that more enthusiasm would go a long way to feeling empowered to say no when offered various services, including credit card increases and enticing loans that are technically outside of our budget.

So how do we get excited about our finances?

“I think if we had a good answer to that question, then the banks wouldn’t need to sell so hard,” said Murray.

That’s why this is a rare situation where he supports government intervention.

“We have enough to data to realize that people are not good at this. They need help. We need some better system that gives them help without selling them more product.”

When Mexico introduced sweeping energy reforms in 2014 that ended 75 years of the state’s oil and gas monopoly, it opened up a vast pipeline to international investments with the goal of reversing years of declining production and revenues.

It also signalled Mexico was keen for international research partnerships to transform a sector in dire need of skilled talent, new technologies and improved sustainability.

“This is a real opportunity for us to take expertise in Mexico and expertise at the University of Alberta and really apply them to specific technical challenges that Mexico has in their whole energy reform,” said Rick Chalaturnyk, a professor of geotechnical engineering at the U of A.

A delegation from the university, led by President David Turpin, was in Mexico last week to announce a $14-million research collaboration that aims to do exactly that.

Chalaturnyk is co-lead of a five-year, $4.4-million research collaboration with the Mexican Petroleum Institute to improve our understanding of how oil and gas flows in naturally fractured reservoirs, which represent the majority in Mexico, he said.

As reservoirs are depleted, either through regular production or enhanced oil recovery processes, the reservoirs and naturally occurring rock fractures deform—changing the behaviour of the flow of oil and gas. That makes it difficult to maximize production, he said.

3-D printed rocks to understand oil and gas flow

Chalaturnyk’s lab is among a handful in the world that uses 3-D printing technology to recreate reservoir fractures and rock formations. Instead of relying solely on numerical models, they use laser mapping to print 3-D models of fractures that his team can flow real fluids through to observe their behaviour.

“That's the kind of innovation that really caught Mexico’s interest,” he said. “We’re really excited about applying new technologies to allow us to explore these issues in a kind of state-of-the-art, game-changing way.”

Optimizing production is not only good for Mexico’s revenue streams and quality of life, which are heavily tied to hydrocarbon production, but has environmental benefits as well, Chalaturnyk said.

“From an environmental standpoint, anything you can do on the efficiency side, if you’re using less energy to produce a barrel of oil, you win on both sides.”

There are already 94 students with Mexican citizenship studying at the U of A—up from 77 last year—and those numbers could grow with the partnership. Chalaturnyk said his lab will expand by several graduate students and post-docs, and there will be Mexican researchers working at the U of A and vice versa.

Talent exchange benefits both countries

Turpin said such talent exchanges benefit both countries in terms of the research and developing a global worldview.

“An international partnership on this scale is invaluable on so many levels. Research cannot happen in isolation; it isn’t constrained by geographic boundaries,” he said. “At the same time, building global citizenship is an important part of a university education with benefits here at the U of A and in Mexico.”

Strengthening the capacity and talent of Mexico’s hydrocarbon sector is the goal of a separate $5-million project with the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Panamericana University. Mexico estimates it needs an additional 135,000 skilled specialists trained to oversee new technologies, projects and policies key to energy reform.

“We have set in motion research and training programs between Mexico’s National Autonomous University, the Mexican Petroleum Institute and the University of Alberta, to ensure that there is technical capacity in Mexico to face the challenges that the energy sector will face in years to come,” said Pedro Joaquin Coldwell, Mexico’s secretary of energy, which is funding the research.

Britta Baron, vice-provost and associate vice-president international, and the U of A’s lead for the project, said the partnership is the university's first major research collaboration with a government outside Canada.

“The fact that Mexico has turned to Alberta and the U of A speaks volumes about the quality of our expertise and talent in energy and hydrocarbon research,” she said.

The U of A first signed a memorandum of understanding with Mexico’s ministry of energy in December 2015. The three projects awarded funding were part of a competitive bid process and announced March 9 in Mexico City.

UAlberta-Mexico hydrocarbon research at a glance

Reservoir and Oilfield Geomechanics for Mature Fields and Unconventional Reservoirs

Funding: $4.4 million

Research encompasses experimental and numerical modelling studies over a broad range of fracture morphologies existing in Mexican reservoirs to better understand how geomechanical processes impact the dynamic single and multi-phase flow in fractured media.

Industrial Transformation and Heavy Oil Refining

Funding: $5 million

Objectives: Develop upgrading processes for heavy oil, evaluate the compatibility and stability of upgraded heavy oil when mixing it with virgin crude oil, and ensure its transportation through pipelines and its processing in refineries. Mexican heavy oil samples will be characterized in laboratories and experiments will be conducted to evaluate the catalytic conversion of heavier crude fractions.

Strengthening the Capacity and Talent Formation for the Hydrocarbon Subsector

Funding: $5.2 million

Objectives: Provide short- and long-term opportunities for professional development in Canada and Mexico, targeted at government and industry representatives, as well as academics in technical, regulatory and policy topics that are directly applicable to the needs of the hydrocarbon sector. The U of A will work with the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Panamericana University to create innovative study programs for the hydrocarbon sector.

Alberta farmers are being urged to think differently about operational safety by shedding old on-the-job habits.

Approaching daily work with a shift in thinking could go a long way to preventing unnecessary injuries on the family farm, said Don Voaklander, a farm safety expert from the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health.

“Old habits are often poor habits,” said Voaklander, who has tracked farm safety for 20 years. “It’s wise to have that double-think before before you do something that you’ve done 10 times before, but that is actually quite dangerous. Are there some safety measures that should be in place first?”

He noted that a recent Farm Credit Canada poll showed that 80 per cent of farmers felt their biggest barrier to on-the-job safety was simply sticking to old habits.

In addition, farmers are five times more likely to die through work-related accidents than any other industry. And, said Voaklander, the child fatality rate on Alberta farms is slowly climbing—going against the national trend. Between 1990 and 2013, child fatalities rose from about eight per 100,000 farm children to about 15 per 100,000.

Small-farm workers, often exempt from existing health and safety regulations, are especially vulnerable to injury, he added. As sole proprietors of their operations without employees or payrolls, they aren’t required to have worker’s compensation or occupational health and safety plans, Voaklander said.

“There are uniform occupational health and safety rules that apply to farms and employees across the country, and other factors such as guarding equipment on machinery that has gotten better over the past 25 years. But at the end of the day, the people getting hurt on farms are family farmers, and we still haven’t addressed that issue.”

But they can take action on their own, he added, urging farmers to check out the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association for safety information. “There are a lot of best practices out there for farm safety, so take advantage of that.”

1. Power up tractor safety

Retrofit old tractors with protective structures that prevent rollover. “The number one killer is tractor rollovers,” Voaklander said. There have been about 21 deaths per year over the last 22 years. There is a bit of cost involved in sprucing up an old tractor before it is traded in for a newer, safer model, but in the meantime, “farmers are great fabricators” and can often construct something themselves, using plans available on the Internet.

2. Don’t mix young kids and farm equipment

Keep children under the age of 10 out of the farmyard when using heavy machinery. Of the 10 per cent of youngsters injured on the farm on average each year, almost all of them are struck by heavy equipment, Voaklander said. Also avoid letting them ride along as extra passengers in tractor and combine cabs that have no seating for more than one or two people.

3. Match the child to the chores

Make sure kids are up to the jobs they are assigned around the farm. Voaklander recommends checking out the North American Guidelines for Children’s Agricultural Tasks, which lists 75 guidelines jointly developed by farmers and child development specialists. Rather than age, the guidelines are based on factors like a child’s comfort level and physical size. “You can look at your child’s capabilities and match them to jobs they should be able to do with only minimal risk.”

4. Keep in touch on the back forty

Because farmers sometimes work alone and in isolated areas, it’s a good idea to have a way to stay in touch and check in with someone on a regular basis, using cellphones or a walkie-talkie system, Voaklander said. “Regular communication is especially important for older workers who might have health issues.”

]]>Business,Health & Wellness,NewsSat, 11 Mar 2017 03:15:00 +0100Research shows media reports on farm injury miss the markhttp://www.folio.ca/research-shows-media-reports-on-farm-injury-miss-the-mark/
http://www.folio.ca/research-shows-media-reports-on-farm-injury-miss-the-mark/“Media reporting is one way to promote prevention, but my research shows that’s not always happening, given the way farm injury stories are told,” says Don Voaklander, professor in the School of Public Health.By NISA DROZDOWSKI

Freak accident. Fluke. Mishap.

These are words Don Voaklander wishes were never used when describing farm accidents. Unfortunately, they frequently appear in newspaper reports about farm incidents, and they may be reinforcing some dangerous attitudes.

“Of all the working communities out there, farmers may be the most fatalistic,” says Voaklander, professor in the School of Public Health. “They have this false notion that injuries are just part of the job.”

Farming is, indeed, a dangerous business. According to the Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting, 101 Canadians die in agriculture-related incidents every year, and farmers are five times more likely to be killed on the job than workers in any other industry.

“It’s unfortunate because, in actuality, we know these tragedies are almost always preventable,” says Voaklander. “Media reporting is one way to promote prevention, but my research shows that’s not always happening, given the way farm injury stories are told.”

For research published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Voaklander examined 392 Canadian newspaper articles taken from the archives of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, and which reported on farm injuries and fatalities. He determined that only 93 of the articles (or 24 per cent) contained a prevention message; just 39 (a mere 10 per cent) were considered to communicate a strong message about prevention.

Voaklander defined a strong message as one including information such as states of mind that are harmful for farmers during harvest time; agencies where farmers could learn more about safety; the necessary items to include in a farm first aid kit; or calls for training standards and expert committees.

To be even more effective, the information or strategies presented came from a recognized professional: a researcher, a medical professional or a safety expert.

Examination of the articles also uncovered a trend. Those which appeared in newspapers closer to major urban centres were twice as likely to include preventive messaging as those with a mainly rural readership. Voaklander says this is due, in part, to the fact that most every other industry, more widely represented in an urban setting, is protected by legislation.

From his public health perspective, Voaklander sees this is a missed opportunity by newspapers with a more rural readership to educate farm workers about preventive measures and the workplace safety they deserve.

“In Alberta, we have comprehensive child labour laws and health and safety regulations covering other workers and industries, but many of the people who are at risk in farming have been excluded,” says Voaklander.

“We need to start talking about prevention and the policies that will achieve safety for all farm workers,” Voaklander explains. “Once there is a realization that all farm workers deserve to be fairly and equitably protected in their workplace, we will begin to see accidents as the preventable tragedies they are.”

Voaklander will give a free public lecture entitled “Old MacDonald had a farm injury” on Thursday, March 9 from 5 to 6 p.m. in room 2-490 ECHA. The lecture is part of the This is Public Health series.

For more than a year, Jerry Raduy researched whether to take his small, Calgary-based drilling company, Clear Directional Drilling Solutions, into the Middle East.

After travelling to a free trade zone in the Persian Gulf and investing in professional service firms to investigate what’s involved to do business in Iran—from accounting to shipping equipment to legal and insurance concerns—Raduy recently decided to put the expansion plans on pause . . . temporarily.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen yet with Canada and U.S. relations when it comes to some Middle Eastern countries,” said Raduy, adding that his research also revealed there were too many unknowns beyond the political uncertainty.

“We don’t want to be first. We want to be a close second. Let somebody else go through the pain and misery and pave the path,” he said.

So why did they bother at all? The promise of future growth—day rates for oil and gas services in some Middle Eastern countries are three to four times what they are in North America—is tempting despite the many risks, such as waiting six months to a year for receivables.

“Internationalization is not for everyone or for every business. An SME should only diversify if they have a product that is truly competitive and if they can reap benefits from economies of scale,” he said.

Smart strategy for SMEs

“Having said that, the economy is now global. Any business should consider how the global market may become part of their business plans over time and have a long view on that.”

At the tail end of 2016, the school, in partnership with the Petroleum Services Association of Canada, hosted a two-day training program for Alberta’s oil and gas service and technology SMEs to share international strategy development essentials. Here are just a few of the tips gleaned from the program.

1. Choose your time

Don’t wait until the market turns to go global. “It’s a common mistake companies make but when the motivation is the highest, it may not be the best time to (expand),” said Wong. “You need to have significant resources to invest and be able to afford to wait, sometimes years.”

2. Make sure you have money to spend

Expect to invest money for years with little or no return, said Wong. From research to equipment shipping costs and salaries to manage, initial outlay can range from $50,000 to upwards of $200,000, he added.

3. Find a partner

Some countries require outside companies to use a local partner, such as another company or consultancy. But even when that is not the case, it makes sense to hire a local company to do the initial groundwork, said Hesham Reda, business unit director with Tenaris, North Africa. “A representative agent works to promote a scope of work,” he explained, adding that it’s vital to meet the agent in person to ensure a good fit and to test them for a trial period.

4. Investigate what’s involved

Raduy is learning all he can in advance of making the leap, such as shipping hurdles due to sanctioned materials in his equipment. “My top advice is to get a partner and do your homework. You may think you don’t know what you don’t know, but it behooves you to make sure you do. Ask lots of questions.”

5. Consider cultural differences

“Make sure you have the ability to satisfy foreign demands,” said Wong. “You may need to adjust your product or service to suit local preferences and needs.” One of the main findings out of the last program was that Canadian oil and gas SMEs should change the way they work at home by joining together. “A lot of companies overseas do not take little companies seriously and prefer to deal with one big supplier rather than multiple smaller suppliers. One solution may be for local companies to form an alliance or consortium and take that into foreign markets,”he added.

In January 2016, the community of Fox Creek experienced a record-setting earthquake. The largest and most powerful activity recorded in Alberta in the last decade, the event was rated at 4.8 on the Richter magnitude scale and was accompanied by hundreds of smaller quakes.

Research from the University of Alberta’s Department of Physics shows that the Fox Creek earthquake, along with many others in the region, was caused by hydraulic fracturing.

These induced earthquakes are caused by industrial activities involving fluid injection or extraction, such as hydraulic fracturing, and are becoming larger and more frequent worldwide.

Induced seismicity

“Since 2015, Alberta has experienced a number of earthquakes with magnitudes close to 4.0,” explains Ruijia Wang, PhD candidate. “This research has improved our understanding of the nature and characteristics of these induced earthquakes—which is critical for future hazard assessment and monitoring.”

In a study conducted in conjunction with the Alberta Geological Survey, Wang and colleagues used regional seismic recordings to analyze the source mechanisms of earthquakes induced by hydraulic fracturing in Alberta. The geology of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, an area of nearly 1.5 million square kilometres in Western Canada, supports the potential fault geometry, thereby setting the stage for future induced earthquakes in the region.

“Our research on the January 2016 earthquake cluster offers critical insights on the nature of induced earthquakes in the Fox Creek region and other parts of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin,” explains Wang.

Wang notes that, whereas the majority of induced earthquakes in Canada are associated with hydraulic fracturing, induced earthquakes in the United States are predominantly caused by wastewater disposal. This notable difference is one of the many lingering questions that invite regionally based, case-by-case studies of induced seismicity in Canada.

Potential for policy

“As we understand more about how and why hydraulic fracturing causes induced earthquakes, we are able to assist governing agencies in developing more informed policies and regulations,” Wang says.

Perhaps no Canadian is anticipating the inauguration today of Donald Trump as U.S. president with keener interest than Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s new foreign affairs minister.

After a cabinet shuffle last week, she will be the one most responsible for fostering a functional relationship between the two countries—a major challenge, given there’s no way to predict how Trump will act on any issue important to our country.

But tapping Freeland to walk that minefield is at least a good start, said Greg Anderson, a University of Alberta observer of Canada-U.S. relations.

"I think she would have been a good foreign minister from the beginning,” he said, noting that Freeland successfully closed the Canada-European Union trade deal. “She was great as trade minister and is first rate on economics and economic policy, and that's about 85 per cent of the relationship between the U.S. and Canada anyway.

“She speaks their language—the language of business. An academic voice like that of (former foreign minister) Stéphane Dion just wasn't going to cut it.”

There are any number of fractious issues on Freeland’s agenda, mostly dealing with trade. Here are six big ones to watch when she heads to Washington to take on the Trump administration.

1. Border security

First and foremost, Trump’s gripe with Mexico could be very bad news for Canada, said Anderson, since we’ll likely get caught in the crossfire. Trump says he wants a wall and expects Mexico to pay for it. He may mean that more figuratively than literally, but it’s hard to see how Homeland Security will make an exception for its northern border when imposing restrictions down south, said Anderson.

“We're talking about a massive labyrinthine bureaucracy that doesn't discriminate very well,” he said. “Homeland Security is just a big police force. Whatever gets implemented on the U.S./Mexican border in terms of new border restrictions on the movement of people will carry over to Canada.

"We’ve seen this already—restrictions on the movement of Canadians across the U.S. border has changed dramatically in 15 years, and the two borders are treated essentially the same."

2. NAFTA

According to Anderson, 43 per cent of Canada’s economy is dependent on open markets and trade.

“The potential impact of U.S. protectionism is even more evident if you consider where most of Canada's and Mexico's exports actually go—77 per cent and 81 per cent respectively to the U.S. alone,” said Anderson. “The bottom line is that selling lots of stuff to Americans has worked out very well for both Canadians and Mexicans.”

As a result, we could feel the impact of any major changes to the NAFTA "big time," potentially lowering our average standard of living.

"I'm shocked that Trudeau is even willing to put NAFTA on the table,” said Anderson, “as he did the first day he called Trump to congratulate him.”

This week, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told a senate committee that “all aspects of NAFTA will be put on the table,” while also sending reassuring signals that his administration is really more interested in goods crossing the Mexican border, and that Canada has little to fear in opening the agreement.

Anderson isn’t convinced.

“It's kind of difficult to imagine how what gets done with Mexico doesn't in some sense get felt here,” said Anderson. “The idea that Canada is going to get some special exemption is rubbish.”

3. Keystone XL

Trump promised to reverse Obama’s decision blocking the Keystone XL pipeline extension—which would carry diluted bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands to the Gulf of Mexico—within his first 100 days in office. It’s a move Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he’d welcome.

Meanwhile, the pipeline opposition movement has been gathering steam in the U.S., demonstrated most forcefully by the standoff over the Dakota Access pipeline late last year. Opponents won’t give up without a fight, but that’s unlikely to deter a Trump administration, said Anderson.

"I think that will be put back on the table and will probably get done,” he said, especially with former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson leading the State Department.

“I'm not sure when it will be reconsidered or exactly who will initiate it (White House or Congress), but it should be an easy win for Trump and the GOP.”

4. Environmental policy

When it comes to environmental protection, Trump’s election could reverse years of progress, said Anderson, throwing us back to “a situation like we were under the Kyoto protocols, when the (former president George W.) Bush administration said it wasn't going to do anything to meet those commitments. It was a nice excuse for (former prime minister) Jean Chrétien to do nothing too.”

Given that precedent, Anderson said, the question is whether Trudeau will continue to pursue measures like a national carbon tax and other environmental regulations while our neighbours to the south get a free ride.

One argument you’re bound to hear, he said, is that “we can't have the Americans at a competitive advantage while we're paying carbon levies of one kind or another. So Trudeau is going to get a lot of blowback, but whether he pushes ahead or not—or has the guts and spine to do it—is another question.”

5. Canadian auto sector

Trump already tweeted that big auto manufacturers like General Motors and Toyota would face a “big border tax” if they import vehicles from Mexico, but until last Friday his team remained mum on the Canadian auto industry.

That’s when Trump spokesperson Sean Spicer finally broke the silence, promising heavy tariffs "when a company that's in the U.S. moves to a place, whether it's Canada or Mexico or any other country seeking to put U.S. workers at a disadvantage.”

Last year, the five biggest auto companies in Canada exported about $60 billion worth of cars, crossovers and minivans to the United States, and four of them recently announced plans to invest more than $2 billion in the Canadian auto sector.

"And does Trump get personally involved,” asked Anderson, picking and choosing specific cases in which to interfere and sending unpredictable and contradictory signals to the market?

“The big question is how any Trump border measures would be implemented (in both Canadian and Mexican cases) when so many parts and semi-manufactured bits of cars go back and forth across the border.

“Where would Trump assess the border tax? Only finished cars? What about parts that end up in finished cars? Would they effectively be double-taxed? Might some kind of exemption for the sector be negotiated? Who knows?”

6. Softwood lumber

This is a sticking point for both countries going back decades and has since become a barometer for U.S.-Canada relations. The American lumber industry has long argued that Canada unfairly subsidizes its lumber producers, since most timber is owned by provinces setting stumpage fees rather than allowing the product to openly compete in the marketplace.

Just this month, the U.S. International Trade Commission found that Canadian lumber is “subsidized and sold in the United States at less than fair value." More duties will likely follow, said Anderson, which could result in further job losses and plant closures on this side of the border.

Freeland has vowed to fight vigorously for Canadian interests, but Anderson suspects the dispute has reached a stalemate.

“There will be another managed agreement, a repeat of what's happened in the last 40 years,” he said. “If Trudeau were smart, he would take a page out of Harper's playbook and pursue a managed agreement sooner rather than later—a truce basically for five more years.

"It's really about the way land is managed in the two countries, so unless you change the constitutions of the two countries, you're never going to solve this problem.”

There comes a point where the only thing standing between someone in need of an organ transplant and a matching organ is time.

In an effort to buy the organ transplant delivery system more time, Darren Freed, a cardiac surgery professor at the University of Alberta, invented a portable device that keeps critical organs like hearts and lungs viable for transplant at least twice as long as the six or so hours they have now.

The Ex-Vivo Organ Support System, as the device is known, goes against the convention of packing organs in ice. Instead, it keeps the organs warm and supplied with oxygen as if still in the donor’s body. The technology also enables better resuscitation of dysfunctional organs, potentially doubling or tripling the number of donor organs available worldwide.

While their product is still in development, the technology could potentially save thousands of lives. And yet, were it not for U of A-led business accelerator TEC Edmonton, the idea for the product may have remained just that: an idea.

“We received CEO services at the start, and that was just what we needed when we needed it,” said Nels Freed, director of engineering and co-founder of Tevosol, the U of A spinoff company that owns the device. “None of us had started a business before. You have this idea and then you start thinking, ‘We need to have a business, but how?’

“I don’t see how we could have done this without TEC Edmonton.”

That was the consensus among TEC Edmonton clients on hand to unveil the TEC Innovation District, a new community workspace located on the ground floor of Enterprise Square in the heart of Edmonton’s downtown.

“This accelerator space is more than just 24-hour physical workspace for tech entrepreneurs and companies; it’s also access to programs and resources that help entrepreneurs and companies grow and succeed,” said Larry Kostiuk, U of A assistant vice-president of research.

Chris Lumb, CEO of TEC Edmonton, says the main-floor Enterprise Square location was chosen because of its street-front appeal as a touchpoint for technology entrepreneurs to get mentorship and coaching from TEC Edmonton's in-house team of entrepreneurs and experts.

“Everything that takes place in an innovation space happens because there is a community that is committed to make it happen, is prepared to put resources into it and comes together and recognizes the strength of the various players in the system,” said Lumb.

The new space will allow TEC Edmonton to do more of what it does best—grow companies. Deron Bilous, Alberta’s minister of economic development and trade, said TEC Edmonton companies have an annual growth rate of 25 per cent, compared with a rate of less than five per cent nationally.

However, he noted that those U of A-driven discoveries and innovations don’t happen in a vacuum—they require strong support, funding and collaboration.

“We need Alberta to be the place where great ideas begin and where they succeed,” said Bilous. “More than ever we need to build a strong base for innovation, which includes excellence in basic and applied research programs, a business climate encouraging and supporting innovation, and targeted supports for innovators through commercialization hubs.”

A business leader whose candidacy was often perceived as a joke persisted, ran an unconventional campaign that left few people indifferent and is about to become, to the astonishment of many, the 45th president of the United States tomorrow. What can we learn from his unexpected victory?

“Business leaders should remind themselves that getting the job is a lot different from actually leading,” said University of Alberta strategic management expert Marvin Washington.

Washington and Alberta School of Business dean Joseph Doucet offer four important insights and lessons—things to do and things not to do—future leaders can take from Trump’s example so far.

1. Simplicity matters

“There’s a line that’s been going through my head since Trump won: ‘Sometimes the simple message really is the best message even if it’s wrong,’” said Washington.

“If there’s one thing Trump does extremely well, it’s getting the attention of people in six seconds by saying something they will hang onto. What he said may have been cruel, mean or false. But it worked.”

The lesson: Our job as leaders is to take complex and complicated information and make the message simple, said Washington.

“Everyone knows things are much more complicated than building a wall, for example, but that doesn’t matter because simplicity is what we want to hear.”

2. Integrity matters more

When it comes to integrity, Doucet points to the incoming president as an example of what not to do.

“When I look at Trump, his lack of understanding of ethical principles and good governance is so blatant that it’s difficult for me to speak about his positive character traits,” said Doucet.

In other words, it’s hard to believe in and follow someone you can’t count on to do the right thing, especially when it’s as clear as adhering to a code of ethics.

“What the business world sees as legitimate conflict of interest is foreign to him,” added Doucet, referring to as-yet-unclear conflicts of interest between Trump’s businesses and decisions he makes in office, particularly as some of his holdings in other countries may involve connections with foreign governments.

The lesson: You can be forgiven many mistakes by employees and customers, but lack of integrity is not one of them, said Doucet.

3. Confidence sells

And yet, sometimes confidence can sway even when integrity is in question. Because Trump is bold in what he says, many believe him for it.

“We all know people like this, when, if confronted, instead of backing into a corner will double down, even if what they’re backing is crazy,” said Washington.

The real question is whether Trump is being authentic to his own values or just gaming the system and finding something to say and sticking with it over and over. And the jury's still out on that.

The lesson: “The message for business leaders is to be really clear and committed to something you do truly care about and stay on message,” added Washington.

4. Bullies are a bust

“My sense from watching the election is that Trump is a bully,” said Doucet. “And that’s antithetical to good, positive leadership based on what we know from evidence-based research and popular discourse.”

The lesson: “Leaders should get their team to embrace a plan through a shared vision without bullying them into submission,” said Doucet.

It takes courage from other leaders to confront those who bully in power, added Doucet. But the payoff is plentiful in terms of respect and allegiance from others because at the end of the day, a great leader believes in others.

]]>News,Society & Culture,BusinessFri, 20 Jan 2017 00:13:00 +0100Tough-love MBA elective teaches the art of failurehttp://www.folio.ca/tough-love-mba-elective-teaches-the-art-of-failure/
http://www.folio.ca/tough-love-mba-elective-teaches-the-art-of-failure/Nine students travel to Ethiopia to research business plan for a state-of-the-art, Alberta-inspired cancer care centre.By LESLEY YOUNG

The University of Alberta’s new MBA elective will test even the most ambitious entrepreneurs. Their mission: develop a business case for Ethiopia’s first ever cancer research clinic—for real.

Nine students are now in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, for two weeks to continue developing a viable business plan for an unprecedented, multimillion-dollar regional cancer centre of excellence for eight African countries, by the end of April.

The trip will allow the students to do research on the ground in the crisis-besieged country, which has an insufficient health-care system for preventing and treating non-communicable diseases like cancer. It’s expected to lead to radical changes to the initial draft business plan they completed last semester after studying Alberta’s cancer care facilities and models.

“One of the biggest benefits of this elective is that students will fail before they succeed,” said Emily Block, a new Alberta School of Business professor who has taught problem-solving and leadership in frontier markets to the U.S. Army Special Forces. “The real world is inherently complex, and there’s value in having our students test ideas, learn quickly and rebuild ideas in the most uncertain environments in the world.”

Block has brought with her to the U of A the goal of generating an immersive global project every semester for the new Frontiers of Business Initiative elective, available to hand-selected MBA students seeking an intense experience in business leadership, and a chance to combine business and development in a way that might prove effective in frontier markets where traditional investment doesn’t move the needle.

“The goal of this initiative is to develop a case for a thriving, state-of-the-art centre that includes prevention, research, diagnosis, treatment, palliative care and drug manufacturing," said Block.

Elective student Diane Turner said she's already learned she can’t gauge her success by whether she fails or succeeds, but by how comfortable she is thinking strategically in an ambiguous situation.

“It’s one of the greatest things I could learn and it’s very tangible. It’s an honour to learn and serve for such an important, complex opportunity,” she said.

According to GLOBOCAN 2008 numbers in the East African region, there were 715,000 new cases of cancer and 542,000 cancer deaths. Based on these numbers, projections for 2030 will see an increase in the incidence of cancer to approximately 1.28 million, and 735,000 cancer deaths.

“This project isn’t about changing the world, but rather, it's an opportunity to change a trajectory,” added Block. “Whether this centre will be built comes down to political will and capital. But the ways in which our students build and ask questions, apply and analyze data, and have influence over its shape will be comprehensive and uniquely Albertan, sustainable and accessible by all rather than just the elite.”

Turner added she believes this elective will give her invaluable work experience and a leg up in the job market, given the globalization of business and potential for growth in frontier markets.

]]>News,BusinessSat, 14 Jan 2017 02:30:00 +01006 business predictions for 2017http://www.folio.ca/6-business-predictions-for-2017/
http://www.folio.ca/6-business-predictions-for-2017/Savvy forecasting from UAlberta business experts about oil prices, interest rate hikes, the next best retail trend and moreBy LESLEY YOUNG

The key to managing risk in 2017, both for businesses and consumers, is to be aware of what’s happening internationally, said Alberta School of Business dean Joseph Doucet.

“While we have no control over how things in the United States will impact us, for example, in energy or trade, we can be proactive and plan for scenarios, including how to mitigate risk, to ensure we continue to prosper.”

To be sure, Canadians will experience fallout from actions by the U.S. and internationally—with not all bad implications. We also have a few positive things to look forward to.

Here are the best guesses of what we’re in for in 2017 from thought leaders at the Alberta School of Business.

Tech will make life easier

Ambient computing, technology that is sensitive to and responsive to the presence of people, will be increasingly available to Canadians in 2017, said retail expert Kyle Murray.

“Not only will we see more augmented reality like Pokémon Go, but also devices that are designed to make everyday living easier,” he said. Think talking devices and assistants that help us with nuisance tasks like searching for the best priced dishwasher or ordering a pizza using voice command.

The fallout: This is nothing but exciting for consumers who will need to get used to talking out loud to their homes and cars. However, Canadian retailers have been playing a game of catch-up to embrace online shopping, never mind automated shopping, said Murray.

Interest rates will go up

With market indices and the dollar up in the United States post-election, the U.S. Federal Reserve recently increased interest rates a quarter of a percentage point for the first time in a year. The subsequent boost to the greenback will cause the loonie to dampen, said Vikas Mehrotra, a finance and merger and acquistion expert. The Bank of Canada, though not fond of increasing the interest rate, may have no choice, he said.

“Canada can’t let the loonie fall much more than it already has.”

The fallout: The best-case scenario is that it’s the end of rock-bottom interest rates for Canadians. The worst-case scenario, according to Mehrotra, is that if interest rates rise significantly, “it will have a cooling effect on the housing market.” The good news is that rates are so low right now, even if they do go up it should not make mortgage payments unbearable, he added.

Deals—and failures—will get bigger

Aging venture capital portfolios, more unicorns (private startups valued at more than $1 billion) and Trump’s promise to bring back more American money from overseas by lowering the tax burden mean deals will be getting bigger, said entrepreneurship expert Tony Briggs.

“Some people have been calling it a bubble, but we haven't seen too many crazy deals yet. Fewer companies are going public. If cash is coming back, these companies will be bought."

The fallout: With more money moving around, people will be encouraged to swing for the bigger deals. This is welcome news for entrepreneurs. On the other hand, Briggs added, “buyers will overpay and more fraud will come to the surface. As the Theranos debacle unravels, investors will be putting a closer eye to other venture capital deals."

Oil recovery is in sight

OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) surprised the world by signing an agreement at the end of November to cut production.

“If no one reneges on the agreement, and even better, Trump approves the Keystone Pipeline, then we may see western producers increasing production,” said Emilson Silva, an energy economics expert.

The fallout: “How will this play out? It’s not certain. If I provide a conservative forecast, then oil prices may go up in the first few months of 2017,” said Silva. “But when American producers react and up their output in response, that may put increasing prices in check by mid or end of the year.”

Shopping will prevail, eventually

Thanks to the new carbon tax and slowly lifting recession, Albertans will continue to be cautious consumers for most of 2017, said retail expert Kyle Murray. With the dollar so weak, we’re also going to opt for vacations farther south.

The fallout: “It’s going to be a tough environment for retail, at least, relatively speaking, compared to the previous year,” said Murray. However, he adds that “toward the end of next year, shopping will start to pick up as we get used to the new economic environment and see more employment uptake.”

Green will get serious

Businesses will get better at corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs in 2017—not only because they want to, but also because there will be intense pressure to do so, said accounting expert Karim Jamal.

“Young people have a different understanding and attitude toward the environment and sustainability. It means something to them.”

The fallout: Consumers will demand, and businesses will have to deliver, much more accountability in reporting about CSR practices, including how staff are paid, working conditions, materials used and more.

“Some sort of an auditing system will likely arise to ensure credibility,” added Jamal.

Turns out corporate financial gifts keep on giving: a University of Alberta study shows that donations benefit not only recipients, corporate reputation and community connection-building, but also employee attitudes.

“Our study is the first of its kind to look at how financial corporate philanthropy can be strategically managed to maximize its impact on employees,” said Emily Block, a strategic management expert at the U of A. “This is important for engaging today’s employees, especially millennials, who value social responsibility. There’s even evidence that a corporation’s philanthropy can boost employee engagement.”

So companies can get the most impact for their donated dollars this Christmas, here are some strategic dos and don’ts based on the U of A study, recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics.

Don’t: Leave the beneficiary selection up to different offices or departments

The theory is that employees will enjoy a stronger connection with the corporate philanthropy effort if it is directed at a local charity. But the study showed the opposite was true.

“Employees’ attitudes were most positively impacted the bigger and more strategically focused the recipient,” said Block.

Why: Employees want to experience a sense of pride in their employer. Giving to a bunch of lesser-known charities doesn’t generate the same level of pride as giving big to a big-name charity.

“The good news is that companies won’t need to choose between high-visibility strategic targets that might have reputational benefits—a big trend currently—and local targets with a more personal connection to the office,” said Block.

Do: Arrange for employees to see the impact of their dollar first-hand

No surprise here—employees have a much stronger connection to a donation if they have “beneficiary contact” or direct interaction, according to the study.

Why: “It makes an abstract giving experience real, and drives home the benefits of giving,” said Block.

Don’t: Let employees forget they’ve got skin in the game

The study showed that despite numerous programs in place that involve employees donating personal money alongside corporate money to a charity—think United Way—the impact of this practice on employee attitudes may be minimal.

Why: The study provided no clear answer for this surprising finding. But Block said companies shouldn’t discard the approach.

“Instead, make sure the employee donation is linked strongly with the corporate campaign, and skip the practice of payroll charity deductions. When we don’t think about the actual donation, there’s too much cognitive distance for it to inspire and empower,” she said.

Do: Pair these strategies together

“One could imagine an organization realizing substantial benefits associated with increasing their focus on strategically selected partner organizations, and then providing their employees with the opportunity to visit or volunteer at these organizations to see the impact of their organization’s giving,” said Block.

Why: This study shows that applying a little strategy to corporate philanthropy can deepen the prosocial impact to include internal outcomes—namely, boosting employee motivation and performance.

]]>Business,NewsWed, 14 Dec 2016 06:30:00 +0100Is the environmental price of pipelines too high?http://www.folio.ca/is-the-environmental-price-of-pipelines-too-high/
http://www.folio.ca/is-the-environmental-price-of-pipelines-too-high/Reducing carbon emissions in a world that still wants more oil will be a difficult balancing act.By MICHAEL BROWN

When discussion in Carmen Velasquez’s business classes concerning the virtues of pipelines begins to veer into fossil-fuel alternatives and outright pipeline rejection, she brings it back to reality.

“I tell my students all the time, ‘You want change? Great, I want change too, but don’t forget change is not free,’” said the executive director of the University of Alberta’s Centre for Applied Business Research in Energy and the Environment.

The world’s dependence on oil and the ubiquity of petroleum-related products—from gasoline to plastic to how fossil fuels directly touch countless goods and services—has put us in a position from which there is no easy retreat.

“China and India are still developing and while they are building a significant amount of renewables, they still have a huge appetite for oil,” she said.

But worldwide concern for the environment is as strong as it’s ever been. And with 825,000 kilometres of pipeline already criss-crossing Canada, pipeline accidents are not just a localized threat to water and land. While water safety is fuelling protests like the ones playing out on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, the wider and more alarming threat is the increased extraction of fossil fuels and the ensuing greenhouse gas emissions.

“The issue around not wanting pipelines is really about not wanting oilsands as a whole,” said Velasquez. “The more pipelines you build, the more chance of it being produced.”

And that’s part of the challenge: how do you reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same time that the world wants more oil?

“If Alberta, which has the resources, can take a leadership role and put in a carbon tax and phase out coal, and put a 100-megaton cap on oilsands emissions—unheard of in any other jurisdiction—then would you argue that we are at least trying to develop our resources responsibly?

“You can see (the provincial government is) trying to move us in the direction of less carbon, but how do you balance that with the fact that we have a significant resource base?”

For those who believe the short-term need for a strong economy and all the benefits it brings—good jobs and a higher standard of living—do not outweigh the potential for ugly spills and, worse, the litany of impending calamities brought on by climate change, the federal government’s decision to expand Canada’s pipeline capacity is contradictory.

“We are saying we are committed to reducing greenhouse gases yet we are putting in place infrastructure that will ensure exactly the opposite of that,” said Debra Davidson, a UAlberta environmental sociologist. “I’m not about to put on any rose-coloured glasses and suggest we simply switch gears, and everything will be fine.

Davidson said while she agrees there are some very serious implications that we need to confront, we cannot continue to invest in fossil fuel development for the sake of short-term increases in GDP and jobs.

“It simply does not justify the destruction of our climate to support life for future civilizations.”

And though she acknowledged that a wholesale shift away from fossil fuels is not currently realistic in Alberta, she added that investing in infrastructure that locks the province into decades of petroleum expansion is folly.

“Our current pipeline infrastructure has, at least until the recent tanking of oil prices, supported quite a robust economy,” she said. “Let’s shoot for maintenance in the current levels of production as we begin to look at retraining people and investing in new economic sectors.

“It’s amazing how many economic sectors there are that generate more jobs per dollar than the petrochemical industry. If you look at the number of jobs given the size of the sector, it’s actually not a big job producer.”

In 2015, Canada’s forestry sector added 9.1 jobs per $1 million of value added, mining 6.2, whereas energy added just two. Moreover, agriculture employs two million Canadians and green energy technologies now employ more people in Canada than Alberta’s oilsands.

“The more we move towards having a conversation with all sides, the more we can start to develop some constructive planning around a transition that doesn’t involve people losing their jobs, that can be quite revitalizing for an economy,” she said.

Joseph Doucet, dean of the Alberta School of Business, said transitioning, diversifying or, as he prefers, creating resiliency in an economy is crucial for Alberta; unfortunately, it’s not something that happens overnight.

“Some of the changes people would like to see, like more high-tech jobs or more venture capital, just don’t happen in a short time.”

He pointed to economies in East Asia like Singapore or South Korea, where heavy-handed government intervention led to successful economic diversification, but it still took 50 years.

“That just wouldn’t be possible in Alberta today. The government doesn’t have the same levers and people in Alberta wouldn’t be willing to let a government intervene in the same way,” he said.

Even then, Doucet said the first step toward economic resiliency is creating a checklist of areas where a jurisdiction has natural competitiveness. In Alberta, that checklist includes our post-secondary institutions, a highly educated workforce, proximity to a large market, the rule of law and natural resources. From there, attracting capital and people requires that the government has incentives such as quality of life and business-friendly tax regimes to exploit competitive advantages.

“We wouldn’t start building TVs or rocket ships, but energy makes sense. So does agriculture,” he said. “There are other places in the world that drill for oil and gas, and we do a fair amount of that and we have great universities that specialize in that area.”

As for diversifying into the green energy sector, Doucet said exploiting our expertise in energy doesn’t necessarily mean throwing the province’s full might into renewables.

“A history in oil and gas doesn’t mean we have an expertise in solar panels. We might, but you have to find the rationale for it,” he said. “We need to have focus. We should absolutely continue to focus on the energy sector, but develop more skills in the energy sector that are portable to other parts of the economy or can be exported globally.”

In the end, the conversation that pits the economy against the environment is polarizing, but, according to Davidson, it doesn’t need to be.

“We all recognize the dangers of climate change, and nobody is suggesting this is easy, but we have to take it by the horns and move away from fossil fuel production,” she said. “It will take everyone at the table but it’s not going to happen if we keep taking an antagonizing approach to it.”

For almost as long as there's been a Canada, there's been a University of Alberta. Over the next year, in honour of Canada's 150th anniversary, we're proudly celebrating the people, achievements and ideas that contributed to the making of a confederation.

]]>Society & Culture,Business,Health & Wellness,NewsMon, 05 Dec 2016 22:00:00 +0100Black Friday may not be the best day to steal a dealhttp://www.folio.ca/black-friday-may-not-be-the-best-day-to-steal-a-deal/
http://www.folio.ca/black-friday-may-not-be-the-best-day-to-steal-a-deal/Think twice before you shop until you drop.By LESLEY YOUNG

Let the hunting begin … but only after you’ve done your homework.

Though there are good deals to be had this Black Friday, consumers would be wise to research prices and hold out for a better steal during Boxing Day sale week or a promotion any other time of year, said Kyle Murray, a marketing expert and director of the University of Alberta’s School of Retailing.

“There will definitely be some good deals this Black Friday, especially from companies like Amazon who will be doing some deep discounting. But across the board, the sales probably aren’t that much better than other sales throughout the year,” said Murray. “It really depends on how much retailers are worried about losing market share.”

Canadian retailers’ adoption of America’s biggest shopping day was born of necessity, explained Murray.

“Black Friday was never an issue in Canada until cross-border and online shopping grew, forcing them to offer some kind of deal or risk losing too much market share,” he said. “So who will have the best deals comes down to market share. If a retailer’s worried you’re going to buy that big-screen television somewhere else and have it shipped, then they will discount it more.”

So should you hold out for Boxing Day sales?

“Boxing Day tends to offer better value sales,” says John Williams, president of Toronto retail consultancy J.C. Williams Group. “Boxing Day is an end-of-the-season sale so having merchandise you can’t move is a far more compelling reason to offer discounts.”

Boxing Day is also spread out over a slightly longer period than Black Friday and Cyber Monday, added Murray, which may lure in shoppers with flash sales.

We tend to believe things that are less available are more valuable, and when things become less available and we can’t have them, we want them more, explained Sarah Moore, a U of A marketing researcher.

“This latter bit is called psychological reactance, and it's a very powerful motivator,” she added. “When things are taken away from us (limited time, limited quantity promotions), these limits impinge on our freedom of choice, which we hold very dear—and so we re-establish our freedom by making every possible effort to get what is limited or restricted.”

That’s why preparing a list of items to shop for and better yet, doing some preliminary groundwork, can help prevent any post-purchase regret, said Murray. “Do research in advance of the weekend to make sure what’s being promoted as a deep discount really is. A great deal at $19.99 isn’t that great when the price is normally $22.”

If you stick with online shopping you may avoid another psychological trap that can lead to impulse purchasing, added Moore: competition. “If there are lineups, and if everybody else is rushing out to get stuff—whether this is true or whether companies make it look like it's true—we infer it must be worth getting.”

Talk about anticlimactic: After years of controversy impeding the fourth proposed phase of the Keystone pipeline project, the furor over its economic and environmental impact may be all for naught.

Even if president-elect Donald Trump delivers on his promise to approve construction of Keystone XL, which would link Alberta’s oilsands to refineries in the Gulf Coast, there are several reasons pipeline owner TransCanada may want to revisit the business case before moving forward, said Joel Gehman, a professor of strategic management and organization at the University of Alberta.

“The petro-landscape has changed dramatically since Keystone XL was first proposed in 2008. U.S. demand for oil has fallen and U.S. domestic supply has risen significantly,” he said. Moreover, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects the U.S. could become a net exporter of oil as early as 2020.

Add to that a cooling in Canadian pipeline demand—as of July 2016 there was an estimated 400,000 barrels of oil per day in unused pipeline capacity—and TransCanada’s shareholders may be better off if the company allocates its resources elsewhere, said Gehman.

And yet, TransCanada remains committed to completing phase four of the Keystone pipeline system. Tim McMillan, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the business case for moving forward is still strong.

“From our perspective, oil production is increasing. Our projected annual output puts us at a million and a half barrels a day by 2030. This pipeline transports about half that. One thing I will say is that we do need more than one pipeline,” he added, referring to Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, among others. The federal government will decide whether or not to approve that pipeline in December.

However, questions about production and demand in the competitive climate aren’t the only potential impediments to the pipeline’s future.

“Keystone XL does not appear to fit with the province’s strategic priorities,” said Gehman.

Premier Notley’s recent statements support the government of Alberta’s strategic plan, specifically its top two goals: economic diversity “to reduce the province’s dependence on raw bitumen exports and create more jobs with more upgrading and processing in Alberta rather than in other countries,” and climate change leadership.

There is also the question of where Keystone fits among national priorities, added Gehman. He questioned how the prime minister will strike a balance between ensuring Canada’s economic development while meeting its COP21 (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) climate change commitments.

As for the economic benefits of the pipeline, the two experts disagree.

McMillan said the estimated $8-billion construction cost would create jobs in the short term, have a positive impact on Canada’s GDP and set up Canada for long-term success.

“Although (it’s) a large infrastructure project, prior analyses suggest Keystone XL will not provide a noticeable economic impact to the average citizen,” said Gehman.

It was an election stunner for which Canada is going to feel the effects for years to come.

Despite polls suggesting otherwise, Americans elected Donald Trump as their 45th president last night, as he ran on one of the most aggressive anti-trade campaign platforms since the late 1920s.

Trump promised to immediately renegotiate NAFTA, withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, identify every violation of trade agreements with foreign countries and use every tool under U.S. and international law to end these “abuses” to American workers, and build a wall between the United States and Mexico to stop illegal immigration from that country.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” said Greg Anderson, a University of Alberta political economist who closely watches Canada-U.S. relations.

Tearing up NAFTA

Experts agree Trump will renegotiate all or parts of NAFTA, the agreement that governs trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, rather than simply opt out.

“If he abrogates NAFTA, we return to the status quo, which would mean significant duties on both sides, so U.S. businesses would also lobby for that not to happen. His stance would be softened, because there’s too much at stake for everybody involved,” explained Rolf Mirus, professor emeritus of business economics.

Indeed, there is so much integration, investment and shared infrastructure among the three countries, especially Canada and the U.S., that Anderson believes it can’t be undone overnight.

“There are enough jobs in the American midwest tied to cross-border integration with Canadian business that even a wholesale change in terms of the (NAFTA) agreement, I don’t think you’d see a fundamental change in the pattern of trade initially.”

Canada and the U.S. enjoy the largest bilateral trading relationship in the world, worth $751 billion in 2014—something Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau likely had in mind when he called Trump Wednesday night Trump to congratulate him on his victory and extend an offer to visit Canada "at his earliest opportunity."

There’s no way, added U of A adjunct political scientist Bob Murray, that a business person like Trump doesn’t look at his country’s largest trading and border partner and doesn’t truly believe the U.S. doesn’t benefit from a free trade agreement with Canada.

Experts also agree that Trump’s complaints about NAFTA have been targeted overwhelmingly to Mexico, not Canada. But business expert Richard Beason said excluding Mexico would damage all three economies.

“A big part of the goal of NAFTA was to make Mexico more of a prosperous country. As it develops a middle class, that makes it an incredibly powerful consuming country right next door, and that helps all of us. The U.S. has had to endure a $50- to $60-billion trade deficit with respect to Mexico, but in terms of foreign aid commitments, that is relatively cheap. And what’s better than seeing a country develop and not require foreign assistance?”

Is the Keystone pipeline back in play?

Most experts, but not all, agree that Trump will want to restart negotiations to build the Keystone pipeline, a project the Obama administration vetoed last November.

“That is the only silver lining for Canada and Alberta in particular,” said Julian Castro-Rea, a U of A political scientist who specializes in North American politics. “Trump is very aware of the economic importance of this pipeline. I believe he will try and push this idea through Congress.”

That should be easy given Congress approved the pipeline project last year, although there are some who believe the U.S. may not need the project at this point.

Murray thinks the U.S. will consider building a pipeline inside its country that carries oil to the west coast for export rather than a pipeline that carries Canadian oil to the Gulf of Mexico for export.

“And don’t forget Trump was very blunt in saying that if he was ever going to approve Keystone, he wanted an improved deal and something major in return (from Canada),” added Murray.

The future of softwood lumber

It’s a difficult trade issue to negotiate at the best of times, Anderson pointed out, given land use policies of Canada and the U.S. are vastly different.

“That’s why the dispute has festered for more than 30 years,” he said.

Most experts agree current negotiations aren’t going to get any easier under a Trump administration.

“I think Trump’s protectionist stance will hurt the progress that’s been made to date,” said Murray, who added he believes negotiations will get bogged down in bureaucratic minutiae or simply taken off the table.

Others, like Anderson, think there’ll probably be some sort of managed agreement where Canada will agree to limit its exports into the American market just like it did in previous agreements.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead

One of the Obama administration’s signature achievements was the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement signed in February 2016 between 12 Pacific Rim countries including Canada. Experts believe that under Trump, the deal will not be ratified by the United States and thus will die.

It’s a lost opportunity, according to Mirus.

“The U.S. had a chance to set future rules so that when China and India join, that would have already been established,” he said.

And for Western Canada in particular, the TPP would have offered “much more favourable terms” for getting beef, pork and other agricultural products into Japan, which producers strongly supported.

Bad for business?

It’s ironic that a successful business person like Trump would espouse trade policies that were ultimately bad for business but, according to experts, that’s exactly what he’s doing.

“Overall, Trump is bad for Canada, bad for Europe, bad for economics,” said Mirus. “Trade generally is poverty-reducing. There’s always people hurt, but on balance if you have the right policies to compensate losers from trade, overall, it makes everybody better off.”

He said Trump’s policies don’t add up in terms of revenue and expenditures, wanting to lower taxes yet spend more. “It’s going to mean more debt and it is anti-trade and anti-progress.”

Trump’s protectionist stance could start a global trade war that, in turn, leads to an economic crisis, Beason suggested, noting U.S. president Herbert Hoover held a similar position that proved catastrophic.

“Most economists agree that protectionism under him resulted in the Great Depression,” Beason said.

Hoover, who served from 1929 to 1933, allowed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which hiked tariffs and duties on all imports to America. Canada and Europe, its trade partners, retaliated by doing the same, and U.S. exports shrank dramatically.

“The whole world went into a protectionist mode and world trade collapsed,” he said.

If Trump keeps all of his economic promises to tear up NAFTA and trade relationships with Asian partners—China in particular—and with Canada and Mexico, consumer prices for everyone will spike dramatically, Beason warned.

“I don’t think China and Mexico would sit idly by. Trade is a much more important part of the GDP today than it was in the ‘20s.”

Such a dynamic could also ultimately harm American producers, who, if trade partners retaliated with tariffs, would be unable to sell their goods overseas, he added.

And it isn’t politically healthy for the world either, Beason noted.

“All other forms of international co-operation could start falling apart. For instance, the Chinese might be more belligerent with respect to territorial claims of disputed territory, like the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan and the Indian Ocean, which is in no one’s best interest.”

Anderson thinks it’s too soon to say how it will all turn out for Canada.

“Canada’s bread is buttered with trade. Access to open markets is a big deal,” he said. “The standard of living in this country depends on open markets, on selling stuff to other countries. Canadians need foreigners to buy Canadian products and services.

“It’s a nerve-wracking time.”

]]>Society & Culture,News,BusinessThu, 10 Nov 2016 05:00:00 +0100Pipelines easier on the environment than railhttp://www.folio.ca/pipelines-easier-on-the-environment-than-rail/
http://www.folio.ca/pipelines-easier-on-the-environment-than-rail/Pipelines are more environmentally friendly than rail when hauling oil and bitumen long distances, according to a new University of Alberta study—and probably the best way to export Alberta oil, according to one of the researchers.

After comparing the energy consumption in construction and operation for both transportation methods, researchers in the Faculty of Engineering discovered that pipeline transportation produced between 61 and 77 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than rail.

“There’s not a lot of information out there based on fundamental science looking at all aspects of pipeline transportation, but we looked at all the aspects.” —Amit Kumar

The findings, published in the Journal of Environmental Science & Technology, come in the wake of federal approval for the hotly contested Trans Mountain pipeline and for Enbridge’s Line 3. The projects, if built, will pump nearly a million more barrels of oil a day from Alberta's oilsands to global markets.

At that volume, pipelines like the Trans Mountain project would be the lower-emission option, said Amit Kumar, professor of mechanical engineering and lead author on the study.

“If you’re looking at shorter transportation distances and smaller capacities, rail is probably more efficient, but most of the crude and bitumen exported from Alberta goes to U.S. refineries, which are long distances and at a large scale,” he said, noting that the Trans Mountain pipeline alone is 1,150 kilometres long and can pump up to 890,000 barrels per day.

“If we have to choose how we get Alberta oil to markets, pipelines are the way to go because of the lower greenhouse gas emission footprint. When you are looking at longer distances, you have to be energy-efficient, and a pipeline can transport much more oil than a railroad can.”

Distance and barrels per day should play a key role for policy-makers in deciding what transportation methods to approve, he added. The study is another way of viewing the issue, Kumar said.

“There’s not a lot of information out there based on fundamental science looking at all aspects of pipeline transportation, but we looked at all the aspects.”

Through computer modelling, the researchers ran scenarios for both rail and pipeline transport of bitumen and crude oil for a range of capacities and distances, evaluating energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for each mode of transportation.

“We looked at the whole system over the life cycle,” said Kumar. “We looked at how much energy is put into manufacturing equipment and components of the pipeline, and how much energy is needed to transport a barrel of bitumen. We took it all into account and estimated the greenhouse gas emissions over that life cycle.”

The same concept was applied to construction and operation of railroad track, tankers and locomotives. For amounts over 50,000 barrels of bitumen per day, pipeline is more efficient per unit, Kumar noted.

As well, Kumar suggested greenhouse gas emissions from pipelines can be even further reduced if they are pumped using clean energy such as hydroelectric power, already being used by some provinces including British Columbia and Quebec.

For almost as long as there's been a Canada, there's been a University of Alberta. Over the next year, in honour of Canada's 150th anniversary, we're proudly celebrating the people, achievements and ideas that contributed to the making of a confederation.